Light On Dark Water

Dar Williams: I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything

Weekend Music

I've heard Dar Williams's name here and there, but don't know much about her. This song was a free download at eMusic sometime in the past few months. At one time I had many, many of these that I'd never really listened to, because I always downloaded them without listening to the samples first. I've become more choosy now, downloading only the ones that seem really promising. I worked my way through the backlog by putting half a dozen or so tracks on a flash drive and listening to them in the car, and after a few listens marking (in the music player on my computer) the ones I really like with a four-star rating, so that I can find them later. This was in the most recent batch, and it very definitely gets four stars. Moreover, it makes me want to hear some more of Dar Williams. 

I'm not sure exactly what this song is saying–something about children and war and maybe more generally about children–but I sure like it. You can read the lyrics here. 

 

12 responses to “Dar Williams: I Am the One Who Will Remember Everything”

  1. Craig

    I’m a fan. I’ve seen her live three or four times — me and a bunch of twenty-something women, mostly — and I have most of her records. The quality of her songs varies, ranging from the zany to the luminous, much of it in a confessional mode, but she has a quirky sense of humour that I like. She is one of the relatively few singers for whom I have a dedicated iTunes playlist.
    My favourite of her albums is Mortal City, which I think was her second. It has some really lovely material on it. And I have a handful of favourite songs: “February”, “End of the Summer”, “The Beauty of the Rain”, “Playing to the Firmament”, “Southern California wants to be Western New York”, and, yes, “When I Was a Boy” (which is far and away her most popular song). If I wasn’t on vacation I would make a longer list.

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  2. Mac

    I’ll definitely have to listen further. I had some kind of vague idea that she was an “activist” artist, which is pretty much a kiss of death as far as I’m concerned. Reading the Wikipedia entry it seems there was some justification for the vague idea, but apparently she’s not a propagandist, or only occasionally.

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  3. Grumphy

    Beautiful song. ‘I am the one who will remember everything.’

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  4. Mac

    A great line, isn’t it, even if you’re not sure exactly what it’s meant to say.

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  5. Marianne

    Maybe it refers to the, er, omniscience of Pete Seeger.
    From her website (http://darwilliams.com/bio/) about another of her songs:
    “We have a mountain close to our house called Storm King,” says Williams. “When a circle of clouds gathers around the top of it, that means the rain is coming. Pete Seeger lives across the river and can see the mountain, and I wrote a song saying that Pete is the storm king now. He looks down and watches over us, guides and warns us, like the mountain does.
    “So my ‘Storm King’ is not a king of Greek mythology,” Williams continues. “He’s a father figure who influences me from two miles up the road, where he composts and chops his own wood, and reminds me of my responsibilities. ‘Storm King’ is my way of saying that we aren’t living in 400 BC Greece, we are evolving in time. And that’s what you’re allowed to do with mythology-to let it evolve and show who your Parthenon is now.”

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  6. Mac

    [snort]

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  7. Mac

    I imagine old Pete is a very likeable fellow personally. And he really is an elder statesman to a lot of musicians, despite or because of his communist sympathies. But I really choke on the idea of him looking down and watching over us. That imagery is just too much like traditional ways of talking about God.
    I need to get that phrase “evolving in time” out of my head.
    I’d like to think Gillian Welch would not have said this.

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  8. Marianne

    I’ve been reading here and there in N. T. Wright’s Simply Jesus and a couple of days ago came across the phrase “creeping paganism” used to describe our current culture. In the case of Dar and her idolization of Pete, I think it’s in full gallop.

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  9. Mac

    Indeed. I would say it’s way beyond creeping in the most prestigious and influential circles.

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  10. Craig

    Oh — whatever Dar’s talents may be, she’s no Gillian.

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  11. Paul

    A Hungarian friend once told me (I don’t know how tongue-in-cheek) that back under Communism the headmistress of his nursery school had had a meeting with the parents to say that if they were going to give gifts at Christmas, would it be possible to say that Baby Lenin had brought them?

    Reply
  12. Mac

    I find that entirely believable.

    Reply

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